H.D. Thoreau : Fair Haven Hill

H.D. Thoreau

Complete Journal

July 23

P. M. To Corner Spring and Fair Haven Hill.

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The berries of the Vaccinium vacillans are very abundant and large this year on Fair Haven, where I am now. Indeed these and huckleberries and blackberries are very abundant in this part of the town. Nature does her best to feed man. The traveller need not go out of the road to get as many as he wants; every bush and vine teems with palatable fruit. Man for once stands in such relation to Nature as the animals that pluck and eat as they go. The fields and hills are a table constantly spread. Wines of all kinds and qualiities, of noblest vintage, are bottled up in the skins of countless berries, for the taste of men and animals.

To men they seem offered not so much for food as for sociality, that they may picnic with Nature, diet drinks, cordials, wines. We pluck and eat in remembrance of Her. It is a sacrament, a communion. The not-forbidden fruits, which no serpent tempts us to

taste. Slight and innocent savors, which relate us to Nature, make us her guests and entitle us to her regard and protection. It is a Saturnalia, and we quaff her wines at every turn. This season of berrying is so far respected that the children have a vacation to pick berries, and women and children who never visit distant hills and fields and swamps on any other

errand are seen making haste thither now, with half their domestic utensils in their hands. The woodchopper goes into the swamp for fuel in the winter; his wife and children for berries in the summer.

The late rose, R. Carolina, swamp rose, I think has larger and longer leaves; at any rate they

are duller above (light beneath), and the bushes higher. The shaggy hazelnuts now greet the eye, always an agreeable sight to me, with which when a boy I used to take the stains of berries out of my hands and mouth. These and green grapes are found at berry time. High

blueberries, when thick and large, bending the twigs, are a very handsome cool, rich, acid berry.

On Fair Haven a quarter of an hour before sunset. How fortunate and glorious that our world is not roofed in, but open like a Roman house, our skylight so broad and open ! We do not climb the hills in vain. It is no crystal palace we dwell in. The windows of the sky are always open, and the storms blow in at them. The field sparrow sings with that varied strain. The night wind rises. On the eastern side of this hill it is already twilight. The air is cooler and clearer. The mountains which [were] almost invisible grow more distinct. The various heights of our hills are plainly shown by the more or less of the mountain bases seen from them.

The atmosphere of the western horizon is impurpled, tingeing the mountains. A golden sheen is reflected from the river so brightly that it dazzles me as much as the sun. The now silver-plated river is burnished gold there, and in midst of all I see a boat ascending with regular dip of its seemingly gilt oars. That which appears a strip of smooth, light silvery water on each side of the stream, not reflecting the sky, is the reflection of light from the pads. From their edges, there stream into the smooth channel sharp blue serrations or ripples of various lengths, sometimes nearly across, where seemingly a zephyr gliding off

the pads strikes it.

A boy is looking after his cows, calling "ker ker ker ker," impatient to go home. The sun is passing under the portcullis of the west. The nighthawk squeaks, and the chewink jingles his strain, and the wood thrush; but I think there is no loud and general serenade from the birds. I hear no veery. How much more swiftly the sun seems to per

form the morning and evening portions of his journey, when he is nearest his starting-place or goal ! He is now almost ready to dip, a round red disk shorn of his beams, his head shaved like a captive led forth for execution.

Meanwhile the night is rapidly gathering her forces in deepening lines of shade under the east side of the willow causeway and the woods. Now the sun has dipped into the western ocean. He is one half below the horizon, and I see lines of distinct forest trees, miles and miles away on some ridge, now revealed against his disk. It takes many a western woodland

go far enough, a whole Iowa to span it. Now only the smallest segment of its sphere, like a coal of fire rising above the forest, is seen sending a rosy glow up the horizon sky. The illustrious traveller with whom we have passed a memorable day has gone his way, and we return slowly to our castle of the night. But for some minutes the glowing portal clouds are

essentially unchanged.

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